


The Life of a Meal Ticket

by dancingswanprincess



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emma Swan Appreciation Week, Foster Care, Gen, These are all headcanons but, i just wanted to write out what i thought Emma's experiences growing up would be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingswanprincess/pseuds/dancingswanprincess
Summary: Emma grew up in a lot of different foster homes. Here's all of them.





	The Life of a Meal Ticket

**Author's Note:**

> So like I said in the tags before - these are all my headcanons for Emma growing up in the foster system. This is also my contribution for Emma Swan Appreciation Week!

Emma was usually a quiet baby, wide green eyes looking up and trying to make sense of the world around her. Like she knew her mother had dropped her on the side of the road, and kept expecting to see a familiar face if she looked everywhere she possibly could. It almost seemed like even then, Emma knew something important was missing. It broke her foster parents’ hearts to see the little baby looking around, searching, only to end up crying uncontrollably. That’s why the first family gave her back. 

The second family’s hearts also broke, but they healed with time. After a couple months, baby Emma stopped looking for some mystery face and started looking for them. However, when the pregnancy test finally came back positive towards the end of her third year with them, it didn’t matter how Emma looked at them. Soon, the couple would have their own baby, who looked at them with eyes that were their own shade of blue. Why would they need Emma’s eyes to look for them anymore? That’s why the second family gave her back. 

The third family was scared of her. Terrified, really, but what else can you expect from superstitious people? Especially since their lightbulbs would explode and their power would go out whenever Emma would cry or throw a tantrum. One of her tantrums over not getting dessert almost burnt down the kitchen once. That family thought she was the devil incarnate, sent to test their faith while wearing the face of an innocent cherub. That’s why the third family gave her back. 

For the first time of many, Emma bounced around group homes. She stole what she could and kept anything she could get her sticky fingers on close to her chest. 

The next couple Emma was sent to was warned about that habit, but they just laughed. They were far from worried about a sweet four-year-old girl who still clung to her baby blanket like a lifeline. They often reminded Emma of what a miracle she was, and wondered how a pretty girl like her hadn’t been adopted yet. They thought they’d found the reason when they woke up one morning and found her pulling money out of their wallets. She’d just thought she heard the ice cream truck coming down the street, but no matter what she said, they didn’t believe her. That’s why the fourth family gave her back. 

Back to group homes. 

Now that she was five, Emma had to start fighting for her meals like everyone else. She quickly learned that no matter how big the bully, they all go down with a hard enough kick to the shins or a sharp enough elbow to the ribs. She learned not to keep her hair in a ponytail or braids after nearly getting her hair ripped out by one of those same bullies that she thought she’d figured out. She learned that while she may be taught in school that sharing is caring, at home different rules applied. The bigger kids were better because they were older and bigger, and the younger little kids could fend for themselves. Personal property didn’t exist. If a bigger kid wanted what was yours, it wasn’t yours anymore. If you wanted something back, you’d have to fight for it, and no telling parents anything. “Snitches get stiches” was the rule that scared Emma the most – could their foster parents even afford stitches if she told on her older brother? Would their parents even notice or would their cigarettes take more of their attention, like always? 

When she was around seven, Emma didn’t spend a lot of time at the group home, it was too crowded. Plus, the older kids couldn’t find her stuff if she wasn’t hiding it in the house. Her favorite spot was the playground next to the woods, where she could put anything she wanted in knotholes in the trees, sheltered from the rain. Everything had its own special place – her baby blanket was in the oak tree by the swings, her colored pencils and construction paper near the bottom of the maple, and her magic markers under the raised roots of a tree she called “Grandmother Willow”. The only thing she kept at the house was the video camera she got at a second hand shop when she was ten. 

There was only one group that Emma would never remember. The home with Ingrid. The closest she’d ever gotten to adoption, to finally having the family she’d craved her entire life. She felt truly loved. Ingrid had taken her to a million different things, but the most memorable was the carnival. Emma had finally won at that stupid claw machine, the best day of her life. But then Ingrid started talking about magic and held Emma in the road and let a car come at them. _“I should’ve known the only person who’d want to adopt me is CRAZY!”_ Ingrid made sure Emma wouldn’t remember. 

Emma got out of group homes when she was 13, right when she’d started to lose hope of ever getting adopted. She was taken in by a nice family who, for the first time she could remember, made her feel like she was more than a meal ticket. They asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, what her favorite classes and hobbies were. It surprised Emma that people could _care _about that, could care about _her!_ They offered to take her on a camping trip, and she was all too happy to say yes. Staying out in the wilderness with a tent, a campfire, roasting marshmallows and hearing stories? She’d dreamed of that. Then she met Lily. Who tricked her, who she thought was her friend. Only so Lily could steal the family’s vacation money the second Emma’s back was turned. Lily was the real reason that the fifth family gave Emma back.__

____

____

Emma ran away from the other families the first chance she got. She wasn’t going to let them pretend to care about her, to make her feel like she was a part of something only to give her back when she inevitably messed up. Besides, it wasn’t like she was worth anything to them, just a meal ticket. No matter how nicely they treated her it always came back to being a meal ticket. As long as she showed up whenever the social worker came to check on them, Emma was more or less invisible. One mother, drunk as hell but hiding it well, called her ‘Anna’ once, but no one noticed. 

The day Emma turned seventeen, she ran away. And from that day on, she was finally out. 


End file.
